Afterword

The oldest reference to Bernardo de Gálvez’s “black legend” is by Alexander von Humboldt. In his Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, first published in Paris in 1811, he says he heard during his travels in Mexico in 1803 that “Count Bernardo de Galvez [was] accused of having conceived the project of rendering New Spain independent from the peninsula.”...

Introduction

Since early spring 1781, a Spanish army had been laying siege to Pensacola in British West Florida. By May, after having repelled a fierce British counterattack against the Spanish advanced positions, General Bernardo de Gálvez confided to his good friend Francisco de Saavedra his worries about the slow progress of His Catholic Majesty’s arms against the British stronghold. Saavedra had been Gálvez’s classmate in the Royal Military Academy of Avila and was in Pensacola as the personal representative of the powerful minister of the Indies, José de Gálvez, Bernardo’s uncle....

Bernardo de Gálvez Takes the Initiative

When Spain declared war to Britain on June 21, 1779, the Spanish empire had been already supporting the American patriots for several years. Money and supplies were channelled both through Gardoqui & Sons, a Spanish firm with long standing commercial ties with Boston, and New Orleans from where they went up the Mississippi and then by land to George Washington’s Continental Army in the East. In order to prevent a British attack against Spanish Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez launched a pre-emptive strike against the ill-prepared and little defended British outposts of Fort Manchac (September 7, 1779) and Baton Rouge (September 21, 1779) that quickly surrendered. The next objective, Mobile, had stronger defenses so reinforcements were needed from Cuba. The high command on the island, however doubted both the operation, and the commander. More so, on January 1780, the Spanish forces that sailed from New Orleans were mostly wrecked by a storm. Despite this setback, Gálvez continued his march towards Mobile and after the arrival of the long-awaited reinforcements and supplies from Havana he was able to start the siege by late February 1780. On March 13, the Spanish artillery was able to breach Fort Charlotte’s walls and the British garrison surrendered.

New Spain

This chapter follows Bernardo de Gálvez’s first sojourn in America where he followed his uncle who was posted to the viceroyalty of New Spain (mainly today’s Mexico, Southwest of the United States and part of Central America) as visitador general (visitor general) in charge of conducting an inspection of all the branches of colonial administration as part of the so-called bourbon reforms. When his uncle fell seriously ill, Bernardo de Gálvez assumed his position as lieutenant, and afterwards as captain of the Presidiales, the American-born soldiers, fighting the Apaches who were conducting raids against Spanish settlements. Instead of succumbing to the warmongering attitudes prevalent in the region, he studied the Apaches’ culture, including their motivations for their attacks, concluding that a new Indian policy was needed in order to pacify the region. His report appeared under the title of Account and reflections on the current war against the Apache Indians in the provinces of New Spain is a mayor source for the Apaches’ culture and situation during the second-half of the eighteenth century.

His Finest Hour

On October 16, 1780, Bernardo de Gálvez’s forces sailed from Cuba to Pensacola. Two days later, a hurricane sank several ships, damaged most of the remaining ones, and scattered them off course. At his arrival to Havana, Gálvez faced the island’s high command who not only demanded his replacement but the cancellation of the attack against Pensacola. After several months of discussions and with the crucial assistance of Francisco de Saavedra, José de Gálvez special appointee to Cuba, Gálvez was able to reassert his authority and foster preparations for a second attempt to capture Pensacola. On February 28, 1781, “the expedition for the relief of Mobile and the conquest of Pensacola” set sail from Havana. Once in Pensacola, the navy officers refused to continue inside the bay since it was reputed too shallow for the ships’ draft. To prove them wrong, Gálvez embarked on the Galvezton, a small ship under his command as Louisiana’s governor and safely entered the bay. The fleet commanders had no choice but to follow. The siege works started shortly afterwards. However, reinforcements and supplies were needed for the operation to succeed. The first to arrive were from Mobile and New Orleans (March 22, 1781), but those from Havana, including French naval and army forces, did not reach Pensacola until April 19. On May 8, 1781, an anticipated long siege was abruptly ended when a shot from the Spanish batteries impacted the Queen’s Redoubt’s magazine, producing a big explosion. Two days later, Pensacola surrendered.

Learning to Be an Officer and Tasting Defeat

In 1774, Bernardo de Gálvez was briefly assigned as captain in the Seville Regiment garrisoned in Cadiz and later was selected to study at the Royal Military Academy of Avila were promising young officers were prepared to become not only future generals but also high ranking officials in the Spanish civil service. The following year, Bernardo de Gálvez volunteered for the Spanish attack against the city of Algiers. Although it was a complete failure, it allowed him to distinguish himself. During the retreat he refused to withdraw until the last of his men was evacuated, even though he was seriously injured. At his return to Spain he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed as colonel of the Louisiana Fixed Infantry Regiment and acting governor of Spanish Louisiana.

Arrival in Louisiana and Preparations for War

Bernardo de Gálvez arrived to New Orleans at the end of 1776 and took office on January 1 of the following year. With the British colonies in open revolt, Spain needed to prepare for what it seemed to be unavoidable: another chapter in the centuries-old confrontation against Britain in the Americas. The Paris Treaty of 1763, which ended the Seven Years’ War, had transferred Louisiana from France to Spain, but shortly afterwards the former French colonists rebelled against their new rulers, therefore Bernardo de Gálvez’s first priority was to ensure their loyalty in order to prepare the province for war. With a combination of concessions to the rich planters and merchants with the tightening of the Spanish colonial administration control over the province, Gálvez was able to implement several reforms that increased Louisiana’s economy and its military preparedness for war. Following the precedents of the French and British relations with the Indian nations in North America, Gálvez introduced profound changes to the traditional Spanish “Indian policy”.

Viceroy of New Spain

On May 25, 1785, Bernardo de Gálvez arrived in New Spain as acting viceroy, and was confirmed shortly afterwards. Upon his arrival Gálvez adopted a new style of governance which made him very popular with the commoners while raising eyebrows among the elites.Gálvez implemented, or started to implement, a vast array of reforms. The theatre designed as an instrument of popular education. The military was strengthened and re-organized. Mexico city’s urban infrastructure was improved. Plans for the reconstruction of the vice royal palace at Chapultepec were drawn. Education was promoted through the inauguration of the Royal Academy of San Carlos. A new Indian policy was also adopted and implemented in order to pacify the Northern Frontier of the viceroyalty that included a new model for the Spanish Crown’s relationship with the Apache nation. Shortly after Gálvez’s arrival, a severe famine broke out in New Spain. Using the resources of the colonial administration and the collaboration of the Church, public policy measures were put into place; information was collected; indirect taxes were suspended; public health measures were inplemented; a tight price control was adopted; and profiteers were severely prosecuted. After a short illness, Bernardo de Gálvez died on November 30, 1786, after turning forty.

Objectives

The next Franco-Spanish objective was Jamaica. The biggest and richest of the sugar islands, a crucial resource for the British Treasury with a white population completely loyal to the Crown. The joint forces for the invasion were to be gathered in Guarico, today’s Haiti, but the complex preparations and coordination between the two allies kept delaying their departure. When a French fleet under the command of the Count de Grasse was on its way to the rendezvous with the Spanish forces, it was defeated by Admiral Sir George Rodney (Battle of the Saints, April 1782), and the invasion had to be postponed. In the end, an armistice was agreed before the planned attack took place. Bernardo de Gálvez returned and his family travelled for the first time to Spain in September 1783. In Madrid he was frequently consulted on North American affairs and while he waited for his next assignment he became interested in the military applications of hot-air balloons, to the point of conducting an experiment recorded in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In late 1785, Gálvez was appointed Cuba’s Governor, but with the death of his father, who was New Spain’s viceroy, he was appointed as his successor.

Early Years

This chapter is about Bernardo de Gálvez as a boy, growing up in the small Spanish village of Macharaviaya. The pages introduce the most relevant members of his family, specially his uncle José de Gálvez, who would rise to important positions in the Spanish colonial administration (he would be Minister for the Indies between 1776 and his death in 1787). Bernardo de Gálvez started his military career as an officer in the French Army during the Seven Years’ War, yet scarcely saw any action during the Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal in 1762.